


the heroes of the imperium and the av club

by OtherCat



Series: Crooked Little House [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Culture Shock, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel (Not Really)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-06-27 11:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15684738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: in which Karkat is on a mission to  make sure no one kills anyone else, the Disciple provides breakfast and gets the  heroes ready for their fifteen minutes of fame, and Gamzee…isn’t doing  too well





	1. ==>Karkat: wake the hell up

In your dream, Aradia is very earnestly explaining something to you, while you’re standing in front of a door. You nod, not really listening because you’re experiencing a terrifying amount of déjà vu. You are the definition of hesitation, expecting Jack to appear at any moment. 

“Go for it dude,” Dave urges you. 

“Carpe noctem!” Jade says with a grin. 

“What about you guys?” you can’t help but ask. 

“We have a ways to go yet, don’t worry about it,” Dave says, and pats your shoulder.

“‘Ways to go yet?’” John asks. 

“That is a surprisingly down home turn of phrase,” Rose agrees.

“Wow, fuck you guys,” Dave says. “Here I am trying to reassure my nubby bro here and you have to ruin our Moment. Moments are sacred, okay?”

“I will do approximately all of the worrying,” you say, ignoring the exchange. “If you can’t come with, what’s going to happen to you guys?” 

“We got our own doors, dude,” Dave says. “We’re a bit further out than you guys.” He doesn’t mention that this is most likely what Aradia had been telling you, that you hadn’t been paying attention to. You can hear it in his voice though. Smug asshole. 

You clamp your mouth shut against the wigglerish wail of, _but I’ll never see you again!_ Instead, you nod. “Okay, fine. Let’s do this.” 

“You’re making it happen,” Dave says. 

You snort and open the door. Eleven of you head through the door. You turn back for a moment before following your friends. Dave’s smiling at you, and behind him Jade is giving you double pistols and a wink. Dork. John and Rose are waving at you, and their Dancestors are looking on with polite interest. You smile back and wave before heading through the door and everything vanishes and reassembles. 

You wake up to a persistent ping from a husktop that is too shiny and new to be yours. Everything in the room you’re in is too shiny and new to be yours, the room included. You can smell paint; it’s that kind of new. You work your way out of the recuperacoon, scraping off slime that you can tell doesn’t have a whole lot of sopor in it, and head over to the new husktop. A Trollian window is blinking at you. 

[circesCalamity (CC) is trolling carcinoGeneticist (CG) !]

CC: You up yet sprat?

CC: Wake up already time’s wasting.

CC: There’s shit that needs doing.

CC: Wake the shell up.

CC: Wake up.

CC: Your Empress requests and requires you to stop wasting her time. 

[carcinoGenetcist (CG) is staring at the screen!]

CC: Finally. Thought y’all were going to sleep a hundred sweeps like some dumbass bowling with fairies. 

[carcinoGeneticist (CG) is not typing!]

CC: What you’re supposed to say right here, sprat is, “forgive me, your majesty,” and then some kind of bullshit about being at my service. 

CG: …

CG: FORGIVE ME YOUR MAJESTY… I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA OF WHAT TO SAY. 

CC: Not much like your Ancestor then. Basshole never shuts up and he’s fucking dead. 

[carcinoGeneticist (CG) is not typing!]

[carcinoGeneticist (CG) has resumed staring at the screen!]

CC: Okay, shit. First things first. I am not the beach from your timeline, but I have a general idea of how shit went down. I got the download of what the hell’s going on as a result of this being a restart iteration of our universe, and you sprats arriving from the Game. 

CC: Are you following me so far?

CG: …

CG: YES YOUR MAJESTY.

CC: Aight. This universe more or less follows your universe’s timeline except for the following: A) I have never had a lusus and there ain’t any hosts, excellent or otherwise on the green moon. B) Y’all got inserted into this timeline at about the point you left it for the game. C) There ain’t any game from this point, and there won’t be one. D) A whole bunch of history happened here that didn’t happen the way it did in your timeline, so y’all are going to be retaking a whole fuckload of history modules. E) Your hemotype is not a death sentence. 

CC: You got all that, nubs the younger?

CG: YES YOUR MAJESTY.

CC: Your job right now is to see about getting everyone up and ready to meet your Pouncelor. Also you’re going to be doing some media appearances and shit like that. Y’all have done a Great and Entirely Classified Service to the Empire. We got speeches and everything prepared for all y’all, so don’t worry about it.

CG: OKAY. I’LL GET RIGHT ON THAT.

CC: Awesome. 

[circesCalamity (CC) is no longer trolling carcinoGeneticist (CG)]

You stare at the conversation a moment, not quite believing what you’re reading. You’re a little worried about the mention of a “pouncelor” and “media appearances.” You’re even more worried about where you are and everyone being alive again. It’s not that you’re unhappy your friends are alive again, it’s just…you’re worried. Really worried. 

You dress and venture out of the block and into a hallway that slants slightly and creaks. There’s four doors spaced unevenly down the hallway, which ends in another hallway on one end, and a flight of stairs going down at the other. The second hallway turns around a corner. There’s four more doors and another set of stairs on one end, this one going up, and some kind of glassed in balcony/green house on the other. It’s full of plants and the glass is tinted. There’s a long window seat, a couple of chairs, miniature fountains, and a little pool full of fish. 

Outside, there’s a huge fenced in lawnring with a swimming pool. There are also trees and flowerbeds. Beyond the fence is forest, and above the trees are the green and pink moons. Past the balcony is another staircase that has two landings going down. At the bottom is a kind of cul de sac with three doors. You go back up the staircase to the greenhouse, and from there go back to the stair case going up. There are three doors and a half circle stained glass window in the hallway. There’s another staircase going up, that you think might go to the roof or an attic. You don’t test it just yet.

So, you’re supposed to be waking people up, not just exploring the house. You knock on the nearest door, not sure who to expect. (Highest floor, so maybe one of the highbloods?) There’s a protest noise on the other side of the door. “Rise and conquer, this is your leader speaking!” You shout, and knock a little louder. 

“Why are you in my hive?” The voice--Vriska’s-- on the other side of the door is muffled and outraged. “Wait, am I actually in your hive? What the hell?”

“It’s no body’s hive,” you say. “Maybe everyone’s hive, I have no fucking clue. Just get up.”

“Uuuuuuuugh,” Vriska says. “Fine.” She emerges wearing a blue fuzzy ablution block robe decorated with little gold spiders, and matching slippers. Her hair’s been shaved along the sides, with a long strip in the middle. “Dibs on the bathroom,” she says. 

“There’s probably more than one ablution block,” you tell her. 

“Don’t care,” she says with an almost familiar toss of her mane. “I get dibs on the first one.”

The next room turns out to be Nepeta’s, and the last is Equius’. Both are kind of confused and want to know what’s going on. “Let’s get everyone together first,” you tell them. “I only have the very vaguest of an inkling of what the fuck and I don’t want to repeat myself over and over.”

You’re all about to head down to the next floor when there’s some thumping from the ceiling. It turns out that the house does have an attic, which is accessible by a hatch and a very narrow stair case that drops down, not the staircase at the end of the hall. It takes Eridan about five minutes to both find the hatch, and get it descend, which it does with extreme creakiness. (Equius says something about repairing it.) Eridan comes down in striped pajama bottoms and a violet ablution block robe. “Kar,” he says with quiet wariness. “You still mad at me?”

“I have every reason to be,” you tell him. 

“Yeah,” Eridan says, and looks away. “S’long as you don’t want to cut me in half,” he says, almost humorously. “God,” he says, wrapping his arms around his middle. “Me and Fef, we got most of our mad out,” he says. “Maybe. Might be better to stay upstairs because of Kan, though.”

He means, you realize, he and Feferi talked it out in the dream bubbles. “Yeah, no,” you tell him. “I will protect you from the chainsaw of fuck you, get moving.” You herd everyone down to the next floor. The first occupant of this floor you find is Tavros. He’s already awake and singing to himself in one of the two bathrooms on this level. Vriska immediately disappears into the second one. 

You yell at Tavros to hurry up. The next occupants you find are Aradia and Sollux. The door to what you’re pretty sure is her room is open, and they’re both sitting on the bed, sharing a husktop. “Hello, Karkat!” Aradia says cheerfully. Sollux gives you a very tiny, completely annoying glance over his shades and waves. “Pouncelor Leijon says she’ll be here in about an hour.” 

“Great,” you say. “Wait, you talked to her?”

“Leijon?” Nepeta asks with great curiousity. 

“Meulin Leijon, your Ancestor,” Aradia says. “Yep! She says she’s bringing breakfast, and wants to introduce herself and familiarize us with school feeding and something called juvenile care and socialization?” 

“She’s like some kind of troll lusus or cavern tendant,” Sollux says. 

“Tendants?” Eridan mutters, incensed. “Like we’re little grubs?” 

“If she’s Nepeta’s ancestor, she’s an olive, not a jade,” Equius says uncomfortably. 

“No, really?” Sollux says, scoffing. “Apparently this job doesn’t require that you be a jade,” Sollux says. 

“But jades are the only adults permitted to be on the planet,” Equius says. “I am not sure we are equipped to meet an adult.”

“Surprised I didn’t hear an ‘even if olive,’ there, EQ,” Sollux says.

Equius frowns at Sollux. “And you won’t,” he says. “If Nepeta is strong willed and appallingly murderous, her Ancestor could be no less.” 

Nepeta hugs Equius’ arm. “You say the sweetest things, Equi-hiss,” she says. “Anyhow, it sounds like she’s supposed to be here to help? Not attack us.” 

“Everyone should be on the alert anyway,” you say. “This whole situation is weird.” You continue your mission, only Eridan and Sollux following you while everyone else chats with Aradia and each other. There is something really weird going on with them and you’re not sure what the hell it is. The biggest thing is that they aren’t arguing with each other, which is weird. (And you have really clear memories of their stupid fucking arguments all the time on the meteor, just before Eridan completely lost his mind and decided _throwing in with Jack_ could be a thing.) The second thing is that they are moving _in fucking step with each other._ “So, you guys also talk your mad out in the bubbles?” you ask. 

“Something like that,” Eridan says. 

“Fucking bullshit is what it was,” Sollux says. “Goddamn Hope players.” 

“Says the Doom player who wouldn’t fucking let go,” Eridan says. Despite the words, he sounds almost chipper about it. 

“Would you mind explaining what the hell you’re talking about?” You ask. 

“We got dumped into a sprite,” Sollux and Eridan say in unison. “Obviously.”

“Shit,” you say. “Are you um. All right?” 

“Think so,” Eridan says. Sollux shrugs. 

“Who was your player?”

“Jake,” Sollux says. “Tally ho what old egg let me impersonate Troll Bertie fucking Wooster, only it wasn’t’ an impersonation, he really talked like that.”

“Feferi an’ Nepeta really would have been a better sprite combo than me and Sol. Which is probably what Gamz wanted,” Eridan says. 

“We wouldn’t have been any better with that Roxy chick,” Sol disagrees. “Or with Dirk.”

“Coulda spilled all the legumes about Princes so he could fix his shit,” Eridan says.

“Except we also wouldn’t’ve given a fuck because of our own shit,” Sol says. 

Eridan sighs. “Point.” 

Your digestion bladder meanwhile does a slow flip, knowing Gamzee was probably going to be here too. You don’t know how you feel about that, so you focus on finding everyone else. 

Next is Feferi who comes out of her room wearing dark shades and a head wrap covering her ears, looking spooked, not wearing even a bit of fuchsia. “Carp-cat!” She says, brightening at the sight of you. She wraps you up in a tight, startling hug. “You won’t believe who I got done talking to!” She goes on to give hugs to Eridan and Sollux. “Holy crappie! I’m so glad to see you all, even though I knew you’d be alewife,” she says. 

“The Empress?” You guess. 

Feferi gives a quick nod, looking spooked again. 

“New look, Fef?” Eridan asks. Her hug attacks have ended on him, somehow. It’s kind of jarring, and pretty far from what you remember. It’s obvious though that Eridan hadn’t been exaggerating about making up in the dream bubbles. 

“Whale see, apparently trolls react certain ways to certain colors,” Feferi says. “It’s all instinct right, how you respond to those colors. Fuchsias attack each other. Like instant black rom or somefin. The instinct is reely, reely strong in Fuchsia bloods, and even though it mostly shows up in my fins because my eyes haven’t come in yet I gotta get used to covering up my fins and eyes because she’s coming here for a visit!”

Eridan immediately wants to know more about color reactions for obviously casteist reasons. Sollux and Feferi whack him into a sulky but somehow satisfied silence. You do not want to know. You do not care. 

You are kind of panicked by the idea of a visit from the Empress. At the same time, you kind of remember Meenah, and it seems like this Empress is pretty much like her, in a lot of ways. “We’ll blow up that bridge when we get to it. Right now we apparently have Nepeta’s Ancestor incoming and we still need to find Terezi, Kanaya…and Gamzee.” 

You find Terezi coming upstairs, having apparently done her own bout of exploring on the ground floor of the house. Kanaya has joined the group hanging out by Aradia’s room. Her room is apparently one of the rooms on the sub floor past the garden. 

The one you don’t find is Gamzee. You find what was apparently supposed to be his room though, on the same level that Kanaya’s room is on. (This definitely seems like a good idea that wouldn’t go wrong in any sense, yeah.) The window is open, and a mid-season breeze is bringing in the smell of wet trees and leaves. 


	2. ==>Disciple: be the Pouncelor

The Condesce spent a lot of time debriefing you about the wigglers; their strifekinds, their former lusii, their names and Trollian handles. She mentioned that every last one of them was a Descendent of you, Kankri, the Dolorosa and even Darkleer and a few others, and that was something that was more than a little disturbing, though not unexpected, from what Kankri had told you from his visions.

(You’re a little excited, actually! You wonder what your Descendant is like. You wonder what Kankri’s Descendant is like, and Mituna’s…well, you wonder what everyone’s Descendant is going to be like.)

“The sprats are going to be terrified and hostile,” Condesce had said. “They don’t have their lusii, and some of them killed each other--no, don’t even ask. I got bitty-nubs getting them up and together for you, you just got to explain shit to them and Pouncel them.” 

“You make that sound so easy!” you’d said to Condesce. “They’re going to be surrounded by a complete media circus.”

“Whale, can’t be having with these sprats coming out of nowhere and most of ‘em so obviously Descendants. Fuckers be coming down with polyps,” Condesce had said.

“And what are we saying they’re supposed to have done?” you’d asked, flipping through the debriefing document on the husktop. 

“Prevented an incursion near those mountains in the high desert near the brooding caverns,” Condesce said. “Should explain anythin’ odd they might say or think, being addled from the fighting off ghosts.” 

“An ‘incursion’?” you asked. An incursion was a god-level haunting. An incursion might even be a god, for values of “god” that included “horrifyingly powerful, mindlessly angry and endlessly hungry for your brains.” Fighting off an incursion close to the brooding caverns would make the wigglers more than worthy of being declared “Heroes of the Imperium.” However… “what would they have been doing out there?” 

Psii interjects with, “I have a Descendant.” 

You almost want to smack yourself. Psii had a prognostication talent that manifested as hearing the voices of the dead. His Descendant would probably have the same or a similar talent. “Oh, oh damn.”

The Condesce bares her teeth in a pitch grin. “See, the backstory is that the lowbloods sense the incursion, realize the dangerous proximity to the brooding caverns and get a hold of their highblood friends so they can get out to where it is. Their social group is half a Flarping crew, and half a network of cahoots and wiggler crushes. Add in some Serendipity and Ancestor bullshit where necessary…” She opens her hands in a palm out gesture. _And there we go._ “Jades went to investigate and they found the sprats knocked out cold among the fried remains of thousands of undead, the twelve of them having held the incursion back, which is what anyone’ll find out if anyone digs.”

After debriefing, you put together twelve six sweep schoolfeed packets and enough breakfast for twelve hungry wigglers, and load everything into your scuttlebug. Your hands are shaking a little, maybe. This isn’t something you ever expected to happen, despite what Kankri had told you over the sweeps. Kankri is with you, and you wish you could touch him, be comforted by him. You can almost see him in the shotgun seat, smiling at you. There’s a ping from your husktop and you find that the Condesce has sent you more packets to forward to the wigglers: the backstory.

Before you leave you message one of the wigglers, Aradia Megido. You explain the reason for your visit and answer a few questions. Sollux Captor interjects with questions of his own and attempts to hack your husktop, which does not go very well for him! Mituna has your husktop very well protected against any kind of hacking attempt.

The house the Condesce had built is just the way you remember it. The roof is uneven; the windows are mismatched and unbalanced. There are two wings, one of which is the vehicle bay. There is very little symmetry involved in the design. You park your car in the cobbled courtyard, which has fountain in the middle. The statue in the middle is a coiled sea serpent, puking water into the basin. The courtyard is hemmed in from the rest of the lawnring by four foot tall hedges. 

No one comes out of the house, but you can see movement in one of the second story windows. You wave, and get out of the car, taking your sylladex and strife specibus with you. There’s a protest from Kankri at that. “They’re hardly ferals, Dis.” 

“From what she said, they’re pretty clawse!” Is your reply. 

The wiggler answering the door is the rust wiggler, Aradia. “Hello Pouncelor,” she says. “We’re all gathered in the dining block, except for one of us, who absconded earlier.” 

“Who?” you ask as you follow her into the hive. “I’m going to need to debrief all of you.” 

“Gamzee Makara,” Aradia says. “He…well, he might not be very briefable, considering.”

You want to pry into that, but she’s led you to the dining room, and you have to talk to eleven wigglers. You set out the food, meat strips, fried eggs, pastries, tea and fruit juice. The wigglers dig in cautiously, then with more enthusiasm. 

“Hello, my name is Meulin Leijon, I’m going to be your Socialization Pouncelor. We Pouncelors are assigned to three or more wigglers at a time, and our job is to assist with things a lusus would not be able to manage, or take the place of a lusus should that be necessary. I’m here to explain things about this Alternia you’ve arrived in, and give you details about the backstory we’ve created before putting you in front of the propganmediators. 

“What can you do, that a lusus can’t?” one of the wigglers asks with a challenging glare. This is Vriska Serket. She’s small for her bloodcaste, the modern version that _doesn’t_ have monstrous troll eating spider lusii, and _don’t_ expend most of their energy trying to feed them. You mentally note that you might have to observe her for possible eating disorders. You already know Serket and the other wigglers will need extensive behavior modification and socialization. 

“We can help you get services you might need, work with you on your goals for Ascension, help you with housing or maintenance issues, teach you about budgeting your resource allocation points,” you say. “That’s just the short list.” 

The wiggler that’s a heartbreaking mirror of your Kankri demands to know what the long list is, so you provide it. Soon, all of them are asking questions, with varying levels of decorum. They want to know how the world works, they want to know everything. You ask your own questions, but they’re a little shy about answering, even though you tell them what you knew already from Kankri’s visions. You get the sense that they’ve been through a lot, and they’re still on edge. They are going to need more than your skills as a Pouncelor to help them recover from what they’ve been through, especially since their lusii are all dead. (Serket and probably Makara are better off without theirs, but the others would probably benefit from the comfort a lusus provided.) 

You go over the backstory with them, and encourage them to read it among themselves so they can get their stories consistent. “It’ll be about a week before the propaganmediators and Her Imperious Condescension arrive. Do you think you’ll be able to have the story together?” 

“We shoald,” the young Heiress says. “I’m not shore about _her_ being here though.” 

“You won’t have to fight her,” you say. “That’s sweeps and sweeps in the future.”

“It was eighth sweep, our timeline,” she says.

“She started having them much later, this timeline,” you tell her. “You won’t have to challenge until you’re actually ready, or you think you should. In any case, you’re technically still _sixth sweep_ this timeline.”

“I don’t know how I feel aboat that either,” the Heiress says. There is varying amounts of agreement among the other wigglers. 

“Aradia Megido mentioned that Gamzee Makara had absconded, and might not be very briefable. Would anyone like to explain the story behind that?” You ask. The Makara wiggler was supposed to be the Descendant of the Grand Highblood. You don’t necessarily _want_ to ask about him, which is petty of you, so you’re going to _make_ yourself ask, because he can’t help who he’s Descended from. 

A tealblood named Terezi Pyrope tells you two stories about the Makara wiggler, both of which are apparently true. In one, Makara goes berserk and falls in with their enemy. In the other Makara goes berserk and ends up confined in a hunger trunk and somehow still falls in with their enemy. Both sequences of events are alternate timelines of the other. The other wigglers offer some input of their own, though it’s a little confusing. (Partly because you suspect they aren’t certain what was going on either. They may also be deliberately keeping things from you.) What you do understand from this is that these are some traumatized wigglers and the Makara wiggler may be one of the most traumatized. 

They tell you about waking up and finding that Gamzee wasn’t there. “When he went through the Door he seemed okay,” Tavros Nitram says. “I mean, he looked terrible and he was wearing the Bard clothes--”

“Fakey godtier bullshit,” mutters Vriska. She’s sharply elbowed by Pyrope.

“But I guess when he woke up, he needed to get away?” Tavros continues as if Vriska hadn’t spoken. “I think, I don’t know but I think he just needs some time alone.” 

“I’m going to need to know where he is,” you tell the wigglers. “From what you said, he needs help.” 

“You don’t even want to,” Vriska says, giving you a look that’s both angry and suspicious. 

You give her a frown she pretends to ignore. She’s nervous and scared, they all are. Blues with telepathy couldn’t help picking things up, it was more instinctive defense mechanism than deliberation on some levels. They couldn’t help it, but they could learn not to in the first place, and it was never too late to learn control. You think very hard about tiny angry-frightened purrbeast kittens. Little arched backs, and all fluffed up, trying to be bigger than they were. _Ssssh so cute!_ You feel something snap back like an elastic band in your head. The Serket wiggler goes blue to the tips of her ears, angry at the comparison, and flustered that she hadn’t been able to get more of a purchase. “Don’t do that,” you tell her. “And I wouldn’t say I don’t want to. This is my job, taking care of wigglers, even if they don’t want to be, or think they don’t have to be.” 

“It’ll probably be pretty dangerous!” Aradia Megido says cheerfully. “You should probably let a few of us come with you!”

“I should?” you ask, raising your eyebrows. “I do have experience tracking down wigglers. Sweeps of experience, really. Even highblood wigglers.”

“We’re supposed to have held off a fucking _incursion,_ you think that doesn’t have some basis in fact?” Karkat Vantas asks belligerently. You give him a stern, patient look. It is a look you have had much practice in giving to wigglers over the sweeps. It does its job and his shoulders hunch a bit. He rallies enough to say, “Anyway, you probably shouldn’t go alone, but what the fuck ever. It’s not like we’d be much help, considering.” His voice gets quieter at the last, and you sense that there’s a story there, one you’re going to need to pry into. 

"Speak for yourself, Vantas!” Vriska says with a toss of her head. “I didn’t have any trouble controlling him.” This is another story, one that leads to Karkat glaring, and the Pyrope wiggler smacking Vriska in the back of the head. It is an extremely pale gesture. The Serket wiggler huffs, but doesn’t say anything further. 

“Um, I would like to vote that Vriska not go,” Tavros says. “If that can be a thing.” 

“Seconded,” Vantas says. “Eridan and Sollux are both long range. Close range can be Kanaya and--”

“Why not you?” Terezi Pyrope says. 

“No,” Vantas says. “Just…no.” Vantas tone is quiet and sad. 

“I don’t propose hunting him down and fighting him, wigglers,” you say. “Or dragging him back here. I just want to make sure he’s safe, and has shelter.” It would probably be best to approach the Makara wiggler as if he were a feral you needed to assess for socialization, you think. 

“You should take someone with you,” Vantas insists.

“I could go!” Aradia says cheerfully. “And Sollux and Feferi.” The Heiress doesn’t seem to mind being included, but then, she hadn’t minded Karkat Vantas giving orders. (None of the highbloods appeared to have a problem with it, except for the Zahhak wiggler, and he had just looked slightly flustered. This is interesting, since their Alternia was supposed to have been more like what you had grown up with, than what it was now. Only theirs had been worse and secretly under the thumb of some kind of demon from the “Game.”) 

“Well, alright,” you say. “I need you all to follow my lead though. Do you think you can do that?”

Sollux Captor shrugs, Aradia Megido and Feferi Peixes give you enthusiastic, if slightly differing responses. (“Shore!” “Of course!”)


	3. ==>Gamzee: behold strange and heretical miracles

You don’t find the miracles immediately of course. You’re just running into the evening, not knowing where you are or where you’re going. It’s a forest full of brambles and weeds with little prey trails all trodden down. Nepeta could probably make her way through all this shit, but you sure as hell can’t. You flop down in an open space and try to breathe. 

This isn’t the Game, and it isn’t anywhere near your ocean or your old hive, which is where you thought you’d be when you’d gone through the door. (You thought you’d be able to hide yourself away, cut off all contact, hope no one you knew would come after you.) The pink moon and green moon are coming up over the trees. There’s birds, flitting about and singing, and there’s a breeze sending a whisper through the leaves. This would be all kinds of miracles, you being alive and no holes in you, a chance to start over like the time sister promised if the ugliness in your head would go away. You don’t get that kind of miracle though, so you lie there, staring up between the branches. 

After a while (you don’t know how long, but the moons have gotten their move on across the clearing you’d flopped down in.) you scrub at your eyes and sit up. You still don’t have any notion of where you are, but you don’t want to be in the hive you found yourself in. You didn’t want to see all the people you knew you’d be seeing there when you woke up in a bright and new room, the paint still fresh. You absconded immediately, not caring that you might be tracked down. There had been too much panic and noise in your head. You’d just wanted to leave, so you had. (Would they come hunting you down? They would if they thought you too dangerous to leave be.) 

You needed a place to hide. You needed shelter. You know fuck all about doing either in a fucking forest. First night, you find an abandoned den around time that the green moon is setting. You spend some time digging it a bit wider so you can actually fit and curl up inside. It’s not the worst place you’ve curled up in, you almost imagine being back on the meteor, except there’s more dirt and bugs. (The bugs make for a very sparse breakfast.) 

Again, you know fuck all about getting your wander around in a forest full of hills and big ass rocks. Eventually you go following a stream, because those usually lead to hives. (You figure you can get some food, maybe steal some clothes and figure out where the hell you are and how to get somewhere as far from everyone else as you can.) Your little stream gets it’s wander on, and turns out to be coming from a spring. There is an honest to fuck hermit’s cave right near the spring that’s all falling out of the rock and into a pool that turns into your little stream. It’s all heretical blind prophet shit here, symbols and numbers carved into the rock around the spring, more symbols all around the cave entrance. 

It’s getting to be day again, so you make a cautious inspection of the hermit cave. There ain’t no one been here in a long time, it’s all full of dust and dirt that’s blown in from the entrance. The living area has a shelf, a firepit, a bed hollow carved in the rock. The cave goes deeper, but you can worry about that later. You find an old music player and an old sketch chitin that still works when you turn it on. You flip through the portfolio folders, and almost drop it when you open a file and it’s a sketch of Karkat, only him as an adult with a smile on his face such as you’ve rarely seen. Looking through more of the files shows you sketches and photos of Sollux, Mituna and Kanaya, and people you don’t know at all. 

It sends chills all through, so you turn off the sketch chitin, and try to sleep for a while in the bare bed hollow. Sleep is shitty and restless and full of gunfire, and you’re hungry as fuck, but not to the point where you’re weak, just to the point sleep ain’t coming. You think about going deeper into the cave, you can’t hear anything, but there might be cave crickets you can catch for a snack. (You think there would have to be a lot of crickets before your hunger were even close to being satisfied.) 

So you head deeper into the cave, feeling out carefully with your toes. About a hundred feet into the cave you trip lights along the walls, revealing murals. They are all telling parts of the same story, and bits of other stories in between. You’re pretty sure these stories are also heresies. You spend most of the day reading, almost forgetting your hunger, and falling asleep on the damp ground. 

Evening comes around and you wake up with the thought of digging for grubs or some such like you vaguely remember from a movie you watched when you weren’t exactly sober. You leave the cave, trying to remember how they went and found the grubs in the movie, when you almost trip over a modus someone set at the entrance. That sets the sets a fear in you somehow, so you retreat for a moment, bloodpusher squeezing tight and hard in your torso. 

The feeling passes and you cautiously go out and investigate the modus. It’s a standard, dead simple one with lots of storage space, and it’s full of captchalog cards. The cards all have food and other supplies for making the cave comfortable, and also a husktop. One of the cards just has a piece of sketch paper, with a little caption that says “read me!” 

You open one of the food cards, and crunch on mealbars washed down with water from the spring before you open the “read me” card. The sketch paper has a short message on it written all in olive calligraphy with decorations like cats and trees and other shit. It’s pretty, but the green makes you all uneasy. 

Highblood,

You’re currently occupying one of my hives! I don’t mind at all since I haven’t used that one in a very long time (as you can tell!) and you seemed in a bad way so I wasn’t going to try and oust you. I made up this modus for you. If you need any help getting set up with the nearest supply hub let me know! (They suck at deliveries but you might have less of a problem with that?) 

You can contact me at (arborealCurator)

There’s a lot all going on in that message. Olive giving you a whole bunch of shit, and saying she has more than one hive. Someone confident enough that she can kick you out, but being all pale, almost. You aren’t in that fuzz where everyone’s your friend or that fucked up daze where you were just a fucking puppet. There is a brittle clarity in you that is almost worse than either. You don’t know what angle the Olive’s going for, but sitting there thinking won’t actually answer any fucking questions. 

The husktop when you get it out has seen some use. It’s got icons marked Schoolfeeds, Net Access, Movie Library, Trollian, shit like that. You don’t have any contacts on Trollian, when you open it up. 

[terminallyCapricious (TC) is trolling arborealCurator (AC)] 

TC: hOw ArE yOu HaViNg MoRe ThAn OnE hIvE?

AC: ^_^ Hello, TC!

AC: ^_^ Wigglers with large apex predators for lusii tend to have several small hives all through the lusus’ territory instead of one big hive in the middle, or in a hive cluster or stem of some kind.

AC: ^_^ Big predators need big territories to be healthy! 

TC: YoU aLl KnOw AbOuT tHe MaD hErEsIeS iN tHiS hErE hErMiTaGe? 

AC: ^_^ Please don’t deface them, they’re historically significant! Also I would have to kick your butt!

TC: SiNcE yOuR’e LeTtInG mE sTaY hErE i WoN’t

TC: nEvEr HeArD tHaT tHiNg aBoUt HiVeS tHoUgH

AC: ^_^ It was instituted fifty or so sweeps after the initial Summoner’s Rebellion and the following Exile! 

AC: ^_^ Wigglers with larger lusii were having trouble keeping them fed and giving them general enrichment when living in hive clusters or stems. Giving them one single hive in a huge territory turned out to be emotionally bad for the wigglers so they started implementing smaller hives or even dens so they could keep up with their custodians!

[terminallyCapricious (TC) has stopped typing!]

[terminallyCapricious (TC) slammed the husktop lid closed!] 

[terminallyCapricious (TC) is trolling arborealCurator (AC)!]

TC: tHe CuStOdiAnS aLl WaNtInG tHaT?

TC: ThEiR wIgGlErS alL fOlLoWiNg ThEm

AC: ^_^ Good custodians do, TC. They want to protect and take care of their wigglers!

TC: WhAt If ThE wIGglEr WaS bAd

TC: WHAT IF HE WAS A PAN ROTTED FOOL WHO ATE SOPOR

TC: because he didn’t know any better and it made things not hurt so bad 

AC: ^_^ I don’t think there are bad wigglers TC. If you were hurting you needed help

AC: ^_^ and you would have deserved to get it if you asked for it!

TC: SoUnDs FaKe As ShIt BuT oKaY

TC: wHaT’s YoU’rE aNgLe ThOuGh FoR tHiS gEnErOsItY 

TC: …

TC: I’m GeTtInG a FeEl HeRe YoU aIn’T a KiD mY oWn AgE

AC: ^_^ I’m not! I’m an adult.

AC: ^_^ Don’t worry, I’m not here illegally! I’m a Socialization Pouncelor; I get paid to make sure kids are ready for their eventual Ascensions. I gave you the standard modus for setting up a temporary hive! 

TC: …

TC: I dOn’T kNoW hOw I aIn’T sUpPoSeD tO bE wOrRiEd AbOuT aN aDuLt

TC: WhOsE hIvE fUlL oF hErEsY i’M iN

AC: ^_^ Just don’t deface anything and we’ll be fine! 

AC: ^_^ Do you have any more questions? And would you be willing to meet me in person?

TC: I tHiNk I gOt It

TC: i DoN’t KnOW aBoUt ThE lAsT wHaT aM i GoNnA cAlL yOu? YoU GoTtA tItLe?

AC: ^_^ I haven’t used my title in a long time! You can call me Meulin, or Pouncelor Leijon if you want to be all formal. What can I call you, Highblood? 

TC: NoT hIgHbLoOd LiKe FuCk ThAt ShIt HaD a BrOtHeR wAs ReAl KeEn On CaLliNg Me ThAt

TC: He’S gOnE aNd HiS mOiRaIl. ShE wAs A LeIjOn ToO

TC: CaLl Me GaMzEe

[terminallyCapricious (TC) is now idle!]

You can hear Nepeta’s scream, remember her launching herself at you. You killed her and laid her down right by her moirail. You remember this and you also remember standing with her in front of a door, timesis explaining all about the reset you were going into. How the reset world would be a better place, and everyone would be able to grow up and get second chances. It still sounded fake as shit. Fake as Socialization Pouncelors, but you don’t have anyone to ask. 

You poke around online, get a bit distracted by shit that isn’t quite familiar. You find out Socialization Pouncelors are probably a thing that exist, both from looking them up on Trollpedia and from wandering around in forums. (Mostly casual references or bitching from other kids about their Pouncelors.) This did not necessarily mean that Pouncelor Leijon was a Socialization Pouncelor. It wasn’t something she started out saying, anyway. It was all bits and pieces, all in stages. 

TC: HoW cOmE yOu DiDn’T sAy FrOm tHe BeGinNiNg YoU wErE a PoUnCeLoR? tHiS rEaLlY yOuR hIvE?

It takes a few minutes to get a response. 

AC: ^_^ Hello Gamzee! Yes, that’s really my old hive! I didn’t tell you I was a Pouncelor because I knew it was something I’d have to introduce the idea of first!

AC: ^_^ I was actually going to wait a little longer with that, but had second thoughts. 

AC: ^_^ I should also tell you I was actually assigned to be your Pouncelor, you and your friends.

TC: THEY AIN’T MY FRIENDS

TC: i fucked all that up

TC: I WAS LED ASTRAY AND FUCKED EVERYTHING UP

AC: ^_^ Well, I was assigned to be your Pouncelor and the Pouncelor of the eleven other kids living in the Condesce’s disaster of a hive.

TC: WhAt If I dOn’T wAnT a PoUnCeLoR? 

AC: ^_^ Everyone gets a Pouncelor. We can be surprisingly helpful if you give us a chance! It doesn’t have to be me if you don’t want.

TC: ThEy AlL tRuSt YoU?

AC: ^_^ Not yet! I wouldn’t expect them to, either. You kids have been through a lot!

TC: DoN’t ThInK yOu KnOw ThE hAlF oF iT. 

AC: ^_^ From what the other kids have been telling me and not-telling me, I’m not sure that I want to.

AC: ^_^ Do you have any other questions, Gamzee? 

TC: NoNe I cAn PuT tO wOrDs

TC: ThErE aIn’T nOtHiNg In mY hEaD eXcEpT bUzZiNg. 

AC: ^_^ If you have any questions, I’ll answer them the best I can, as soon as I can, Gamzee.

AC: ^_^ Can I send you something?

TC: WhAt Is It?

AC: ^_^ The official story for the twelve of you being here. You don’t have to show up to the ceremony or anything but you need to know the backstory, and memorize your part in it.

TC: …

TC: AiGhT

[arborealCurator (AC) sending file backstory.fil to terminallyCapricious (TC)]

[file received]

TC: ThEy AlL tElL yOu My PaN’s RoTtEd OuT rIgHt? 

AC: ^_^ If they have I don’t remember it! What I do know is that they are very concerned for you. I won’t tell them where you are, and you don’t have to contact them if you don’t want to. They’ll be glad to know you’re safe though. 

AC: ^_^ Have a good evening Gamzee!

TC: YoU tOo

[arborealCurator (AC) is no longer trolling terminallyCapricious (TC)]


End file.
